BOFH (Barstard Operator from Hell)
I just had my first run in with a BOFH. I had to ring the telephone company about my mobile phone, which has been on the blink just recently. I was told to ring them about it, rather then Nokia, as the phone was issued with my moblie plan. I also had my own reasons (one being that Nokia doesn't like to know that the Nokia 2280 exists, a big flop by them...)
Anyway, I rang up the telephone company, and was greeted by a scottish robot woman, speaking chinese, in a fake russian accent. After swearing and yelling at it for about 15 minutes, it diverted my call to a slightly more understandable Irish Robot, obviously running Windows XP (it couldn't understand what the fuck I wanted, and did its own thing all the time). Eventually, I was re-directed again, back to the first robot. Again, 15 minutes passed, and I was re-directed again, this time to an eglish speaking robot. I told it my problems, but when it came to telling it the name of the owner, it refused to understand me. I read my name 5 times, and it kept on saying "The name you read out doesn't appear on our list, please read the name out again." I swore at it, and hung up, and re-rang the company. This time I got another robot, running Linux (It did what I asked it and didn't question me). I got through all that, and was finally directed to an actual human.
"Customer Service" was the reply I got from the woman at the end of the line. I told her my name, and the problem I was experiencing. The response I got from that was, and I quote "Uh huh..." I then requested that something be done about it. The reply, "Why?" I then began a rant about the fact that I payed good fucking money to use a service that I should expect to have minimal downtime. The operator then began a rant about how much she didn't give a shit, and said that I could wait until she was done doing what ever it was that she was doing. I got the image of her scratching her testicles while giving her boss a rim job. I asked about 5 minutes later if she could be bothered to do anything yet, and the response that I got went something like this. "Nope..."
I released into the phone a variety of extreme language, (most of which would earn me a ban from hell, let alone from EP), which attracted the attention of the Customer Service Watchdog or some such thing. I was told that my service with the company would be suspended indefinitely, directly caused by my uncouth behaviour on the phone. I asked them to hear my side of the story, which they obliged to do. I thanked them, gave my story in it's entirety. I was then told that the whole conversation was recorded, so that new people could learn how to be BOFH's as well, and would be consulted to verify my story. Considering I had nothing to hide, I agreed, and was asked to hang up the phone. I did so without hassles.
About 10 minutes later, I was greeted to a ringing phone, which had the lady I had been talking to before. She apologized for her behaviour, and asked me whether I would want her to do the things I asked her to do before. I told her that I would be fine, and I would do something else about it.
I am now currently writing out an application to change moblie service providers.
What are your run in's with the barstard operator from hell? If you have one, post it up, I would like to know how many of these people actually exist.
Originally Posted by Pienne
